May 13 (Bloomberg) -- California Governor Jerry Brown said
his state’s budget deficit grew to $16 billion amid a tepid
economic recovery that sapped tax collections even as actions by
the federal government and courts blocked cost cutting measures.

The shortfall has widened from the $9.2 billion Brown
estimated in January, after April income-tax revenue missed
budget forecasts by $2 billion. He’s set to unveil a revised
spending plan tomorrow and said he will need to make cuts even
deeper than he has already proposed.

Brown, 74, set out an initial budget in January with $92.6
billion in spending for fiscal 2013, which begins in July. That
plan stripped more than $4 billion from health and welfare
programs while relying on higher income and sales taxes. The
levy increases will go before voters in November. If rejected,
schools will lose $4.8 billion midway through the year.

“We are still recovering from the worst recession since
the 1930s,” Brown said yesterday in a YouTube video cited on
his Twitter post. “Tax receipts are coming lower than expected
and the federal government and the courts have blocked us from
making billions of necessary budget reductions. The result is
that we are now facing a $16 billion deficit.

“This means we will have to go much further and make cuts
much greater than what I asked for at the beginning of the
year,” Brown said. “We can’t fill a hole of this magnitude
with cuts alone without doing severe damage to our schools.
That’s why I have bypassed the gridlock and am asking you, the
people of California to approve a plan to avoid further cuts to
schools and public safety.”

Brown last week submitted more than 1.5 million signatures
to place the tax measure on the ballot. It would temporarily
raise the state sales tax, already the highest in the U.S., to
7.5 percent from 7.25 percent. It would also boost rates on
income starting at $250,000. The 10.3 percent levy on those
making $1 million or more would rise to 13.3 percent, the most
of any state.